The Trophy
by Swallowraven
Summary: Karai's vengeance is finally complete, yet still she can find no peace. Received 1st place for Best Poetry in 2007 Fanfic Competition.


This is modeled after Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." I'd say it's more of an homage to Poe than a parody.

Karai's vengeance is complete, yet still she can find no peace.

**The Trophy**

Breathing in a gasping rattle, after long, exhausting battle,  
Suddenly I had advantage and I forced him to the floor.  
Hatred in my heart embedded, Leonardo I beheaded,  
Vengeance for the lives he shredded, vengeance for the pain I bore,  
Vengeance for my master's end and handing me the pain I bore.  
Pain soon lifted, evermore.

Though my hands were badly trembling, much a panicked moth resembling,  
Taking up his severed head, I brought it to my master's door.  
To the room where loss encaged me, to the place he first engaged me,  
To the statue which my foe, enraged, defiled once before.  
Here I held his head unto the effigy I knelt before.  
Knelt and offered, nothing more.

As I knelt there, drained and battered, all I thought of, all that mattered,  
Was the need to here appease him and my honor thus restore.  
"Father, let your soul be rested, for the enemy I bested.  
Can you favor, once divested, newly through my spirit pour?"  
In reply I felt his blessing through my aching spirit pour.  
I needed from him nothing more.

Rising with my sins erased, I took leave with the head embraced, my  
Garments stained and gait unsteady and my hands befouled with gore.  
Still he had no chance of slipping from my tight, possessive gripping,  
Blood still slowly dripping, dripping, out across the polished floor.  
Clutching at my prize I made my way across the bloodied floor.  
May he bleed forevermore.

No one dared to stop or stay me, not one person dared delay me  
From the act I first envisioned long and anguished months before:  
_Now I to my chamber take him, now through either eye I stake him,  
__Now with laden blows I make him perch above my chamber door.  
__Laughing till I weep to see him fixed above my chamber door.  
__My trophy, here, forevermore._

Satisfied with my achievement, freed of bleak and cruel bereavement,  
Freed of hate so deep I'd feared that madness soon was next in store,  
I at last could be at ease, and win my life back by degrees, and  
Cease my vengeful fantasies, and here my newfound peace explore.  
I could rest a while in stillness and my sense of peace explore.  
Then a voice said, "Nevermore."

Shattered peace. Composure broken. Leonardo's voice had spoken  
Just as if his very breath were in my ear in close rapport.  
Flung from rest, I braced for meeting man or ghost who gave that greeting,  
Strained to hear a word repeating in that voice I did abhor.  
Waited in the darkness for that voice my heart did so abhor…  
…Silence then, and nothing more.

Still I sensed a foreign being – felt it, yes, but was not seeing.  
Slowly then I turned to face the trophy mounted at my door:  
Empty sockets, bruises spotting, bloodied skin congealed and clotting,  
Nothing but a dead and rotting husk no spirit could restore.  
"Just my overweary mind," I said, "which rest will soon restore."  
Said my trophy, "Nevermore."

Rounding on him in a fury, he who dared be judge and jury,  
"Fool!" I said. "You moan as if my master's will I could ignore.  
All our lives our fathers pitting us as foes, we both submitting,  
Death for one of us is fitting. What else were you hoping for?  
Never I'd be friend or lover. What then were you hoping for?  
Tell me more than 'nevermore'!

"Did you think I need redemption? Did you think you had exemption  
From the vows I made to serve and honor Father evermore?  
Did you think I need a ration of your pity, your compassion?  
Did you think you could refashion this devotion, once I swore?  
Did you really think to steal away the love to him I swore?  
It's arrogance, and nothing more."

How they both had always claimed me! How their disappointment shamed me!  
Father and my – _my what?_ – each demanding of me more and more!  
Even so I tried to mend this. "Leonardo, let us end this.  
Surely you can comprehend this. See my reasons, I implore.  
You who always understood me, quit your presence, I implore."  
Said my trophy, "Nevermore."

Since that day my clan has bade me, made great effort to persuade me  
To one day forsake my trophy, to remove it from my door.  
But since _he_ has not repented, never once his ghost relented,  
I will make myself contented with his head, my spoil of war.  
I will not surrender him, my prize, my right, my spoil of war.  
This is mine, forevermore.

And my trophy ever taunts me. Still he haunts me…still he haunts me.  
Still his presence slips into my soul and shakes me to the core.  
I know I'm beyond redeeming. All my thoughts, my care, my dreaming,  
All are given to a seeming empty husk above my door.  
Offered up to nothing but a husk above my chamber door...  
Bound to him, forevermore.


End file.
